I was very excited for our trip this weekend - after nearly 3 years here, we still had not made it over to Portugal. This weekend being a long weekend - Columbus day, celebrating the Portuguese guy who sailed from Spain to re-re-discover America that had already been re-discovered by an Icelander.  (How do you like that?!)

Now before I go into my plans for Portugal, you should know that I’m generally not much of a planner - I like to make loose plans and just do whatever, but knowing we were on limited time and had a few things we wanted to do, our itinerary was as follows:

Leave around 1:00pm Friday afternoon for the Algarve coast and get to Portimão around 4pm and hang out doing whatever for the rest of the afternoon. Saturday morning, the plan was to leave in the morning for shopping for pottery in Porches, and then off to Lagos (la-GOOSH!) for a boating excursion that would take us to the beautiful grottos along the Algarve coast.  Then we’d head up to Lisbon in the early evening, staying in our hotel in the city overnight.  On Sunday, we’d venture up to Sintra in the morning and spend the late afternoon and evening exploring Lisbon, and then on Monday we’d hit the road early, stopping in Evora to admire a chapel of bones and some Roman ruins.

In reality, though, this is our how our trip went:

Got off work late, finally out of the house about 4pm.  Got to Portimão late Friday night, got lost finding our hotel, missed dinner.  We were so tired by the time we got in, plus it being late and dark and hard to navigate under such circumstances, we just hit the sack as soon as we got in.  Well, not as soon as we got in - first was dealing with the fact that I’d made the wrong reservations for our hotel in Lisbon, something I’d rather not discuss right now.  At any rate…

Saturday, woke up delightfully early and hit Porches for our pottery shopping.  We walked around town a bit, admiring the quaintness, the fun doors and decayed walls, and eventually made our way to a pottery shop.

I loved this shop, where the owner was painting in the back and selling his wares in the front.  He graciously allowed me to take pictures, and I walked out with a beautiful vase and a great, polka-dotted coffee mug.

Next we headed to Lagos where we were going to take our boat tour out to the grottoes.  Of course “the seas were angry,” and our very anticipated boat trip turned into sitting in a restaurant on the pier trying to figure out what to do next.  It was still early, so we didn’t eat but rather decided on a detour to Sagres; more specifically, to Cape St. Vincent, which was once believed to be the end of the world.  A great place to visit on Columbus Day weekend, the scenery was impressive and my mood improved from my earlier grumpiness about missing the boat trip I’d been looking forward to for weeks.

We explored an old fort and a castle in the area and admired the beautiful coastline before making our way back to Sagres for lunch - except that we missed lunch and everything was closed.  Still no Portuguese food, and by now I was really starting to want some Chicken Piri Piri that I kept seeing signs for.

We made our way up to Lisbon Saturday evening and attempted to un-cluster-f*#*) the very expensive cluster-f*#*)$@ I got myself into. The expensive part didn’t change much, but we were fortunate to be able to stay at the same hotel as our friends instead of all the way across town in a who-knows-what kind of neighborhood.  We set out for some Portuguese food but found only a seafood restaurant where I had bass, presented to me head and all.  It was…not what I expected in Portuguese food.  I’d been told how fabulous the food in Portugal was, especially coming from Spain where there isn’t a whole lot of flavor involved in cooking where we live.  The bass was simple, what I’d expect from any restaurant anywhere when it comes to a whole fish being made for my dinner.  The kids were unimpressed, as were our friends who got “vegetable” soup that looked like grass in a bowl of semi-creamy broth, but hey, at least the wine was good.

Sunday morning, another bright and early start to our day.  I was going to get my Piri Piri today, I was sure of it!  We decided to go up first thing to Sintra by train, which was, along with our plan to visit the grottoes along the Algarve coast, the other big to-do item on our list.  I have to say: Sintra did not disappoint.  At all.  In fact, I fell in love with it.  I wish I could move there and live in one of the old, beautiful homes nestled in the hills. Particularly, this one - the one turning colors:

Hiking and bussing our way up to one of the palaces, I was constantly in awe of this incredible town.

We stopped for lunch at a restaurant where I hoped to order my long awaited Piri-Piri, but instead had some unimpressive bacalhau.  While the food was not so great, the location was more eye candy:

This building, like many others, was decorated with ceramic tile.

A further bus ride up a very narrow, twisting road led us to the Palácio Nacional da Pena, where there is no way to describe how majestic and surreal this palace - this castle - really was.

After a very long time spent admiring both the outside and the inside (sorry, no pictures allowed!), we made our way down through the surrounding gardens.

By the time we were done, it was already 5pm.  We decided to forfeit the expensive already-paid-for tour of another palace (are you sensing yet how expensive this trip got for us?) and instead head back to Lisbon so we could get that nice, elusive Portuguese dinner.

But alas, it was not meant to be.  Due to some issues beyond our control, we ended up eating dinner at. a. mall.  Not quite how I expected our last dinner to be, but hey, at least now our kids could find something they liked.  With several restaurants to choose from, the kids had no problem finding what they wanted: pasta.  Boy, do our kids have adventurous taste buds.  (Note to self: next trip, Italy.) For me, piri piri?  No - no piri piri.  None to be found.  Instead, it was Israeli food cooked in Portugal by a Nepalese immigrant.  *sigh*.  At least there was still one more chance, Monday’s lunch.

Isak wolfed down his food - after all, he didn’t eat lunch because he wasn’t very pleased with the food he ordered in Sintra - but Anja just picked at hers, eating only a couple of bites.  After attempting dinner negotiations for quite some time, I finally conceded that she wasn’t going to take one more bite, as she was now complaining of a tummy ache.  I thought it was her way of avoiding eating something she regretted ordering, but an hour later when her bed was covered with puke, I realized her body was telling her that this food just wasn’t right.

After a very late trip to the pharmacy to talk to the Portuguese pharmacist that didn’t speak a lick of English followed by waking with her at midnight, 1:30am, 3am, and 5am while her body fiercely rejected every ounce of food, stomach acid and bile, and finding out that our friends’ son was going through the same thing 3 floors below us, we changed our plans to avoid Evora, preferring the fast route down the freeway and back into Spain where they could puke in the familiarity of home instead.

Despite the many changes of plans (and the lack of piri piri), we had a great time, took many pictures, and are already planning on going back another weekend soon, next time armed with Immodium AD and a restaurant guide that will guarantee me my elusive chicken piri piri.

Guess where we are!  In Portugal, where the keyboards make it impossible for me to type apostrophes and question marks!

Today we visited the end of the world as it used to be known  - ironic considering itºs Columbus Day weekend!  Tonight weºre in Lisbon, an overwhelmingly city-like city after living in small town Spain for 3 years now.  Especially difficult to navigate in in the dark!

…and I know youºll all have that song in your head now!

In my job, I occasionally have to communicate with Spanish people who speak little to no English.  I speak only a small amount of Spanish, and it’s even harder for me when I’m having to speak over the telephone and don’t have the benefit of hand gestures and little drawings to explain myself. 

Today I spoke with a gentleman who was one such Spanish person that spoke only limited English and needed to send me an email.  My name is hard enough for Americans to spell or say, but this poor guy had a really hard time understanding the letters over the phone, and every word, I could think of, including the Spanish letter ese, wasn’t helping him - Sierra!  Sam!  Spam! - and then I thought, “Duh! Spain!”

“Espain?  E?”

“No, S, Spain. ”

“OK.  Espain.  S.”

“Yes.  S-I-”

“I?”

“Yes, I.  Italy.”

“OK, OK, I.  S-I.”

“G, Germany.”

“OK!  Espain, Italy, Germany!”

And on it went through the Ukraine, Roma, Dana-mark, Sevilla, Sevilla, and I guess O he got without help which is good because seriously, is there even a country that starts with “O”??

We hosted a surprise baby shower today for our coworker, Alex. The whole office showed up and everything went as planned - she was so surprised! And she left with some of the cutest baby stuff I’ve seen!

The diaper cake that Beth and I made was definitely a 2 person job! It turned out soooo cute! It was both of our first time making one and I was surprised at how nice it was. Thanks to my neighbor Jeanie for the great idea to cover the cake with receiving blankets (or in our case, since the NEX sucks and doesn’t sell receiving blankets of all things, burp cloths instead). Some of the leaves around the washcloth roses fell off in transport from the dining room to the patio; they looked a lot nicer when it first started.

This is Alex and Carole together. This is such a typical Carole look, it makes me laugh every time I look at the picture.

The biggest hit of the party, though, was definitely the babies in attendance. Both of these little munchkins are 2 months old; they’re two weeks apart and kept everyone entertained.

Anja and Ella:

Carole and Aidyn:

This one surprised me: Isak has never been much interested in babies but today he really wanted to hold Aidyn, and any time he was around Aidyn would smile at him. It was so sweet!

And the finale of the party, the part where our heads exploded from the cuteness, was when we put Ella and Aidyn together. Ella is 2 weeks younger than Aidyn but a lot, well, meatier. Her daddy jokes that she could eat Aidyn for lunch, and apparently she took that as a suggestion:

Good times!

Most of you already know, but the Chief’s results came out on Friday and I did not make it this year. While it always hurts to not be selected, I was extremely happy to find out that my good friend Ronnie made it. We were in Iraq together and I was really hoping he would make it this year, and indeed he did. While I’m doing what I need to do right now, what I really need to do is get on a ship - not on a deployment but real duty on a ship. Hopefully we’ll be able to pick which ship I can get on. We’re now considering cutting my extension here a bit short so that I can transfer before next summer and report to a new duty station early next year.

So while the first day was very tough, I’m keeping my head up and looking forward to continuing on what I’m doing now. I’ll make it when it’s my time and I just hope that next year, no one EVER MENTIONS ANYTHING about me making Chief.

So with that, it’s back to my regularly scheduled programming. We haven’t been doing all that much this summer as far as traveling around, but we’re happy with what we’re doing - which includes a lot of weekends spent at the swimming pool having a great time together.

Yesterday, I took off work to go “hooky hiking” with the family.  In the entire 2½ years we’ve been here, we’ve never once taken advantage of the tours run by MWR.  Most of the tours are either overpriced or too tour-centric for our tastes (we don’t really like to go in a large group of people somewhere).  However, yesterday’s tour was a hike that was pegged for “all levels of experience” and encouraged families to bring along the kiddos.  We left bright and early while it was still cool and got to the starting location by about 9.

Our hike took us along the El Bosque river that flows through the Grazalema National Park, starting in the town named after the river and ending in a town named Benamahoma (I can’t find a single useful link to send you to, sorry). The hike to Benamahoma wasn’t too challenging; the kids loved finding things like the ruins of a mill, lime trees, fig trees, blackberry bushes, lizards, fish in the river, etc.  Once we got to our turnaround point, we were starting to be leary of walking up the hills that took you to the few shops located in the town, but we walked in anyway so we could get some cafe con leche for the grownups and some ice cream for the handful of kids on the hike.

Turning around, though, it was noon and it. was. HOT.  The sun was now high in the sky, eliminating a lot of the shade that kept us cool as we hiked through the forest.  And it was on the way back that we realized that this was a very long hike - it was over 3 miles into town, and then we hiked about a half mile through town, which meant our hike was about 6½ miles long - hard enough in cool weather, but when it’s over 90°, the return trip was not quite as much fun as the first leg.

I am both glad and regretful that I didn’t bring my camera with me.  The hike had some really beautiful spots, and looking through the web I realize there is a lack of pictures from that area.  However, it was a very long hike and by the end I was cursing the added weight of my watch, so I’m sure my 2-ton camera bag would not have been a wise addition to the hike.

We really did enjoy ourselves on the hike, though, and I’d like to take more hikes while we’re still here; the exercise was great and it was nice getting to meet other people from the community here.   I hope that wherever we go next time already has pictures on the web for me to share.

Last weekend was eventful, with the extended weekend being filled with carnivals, barbeques, beach trips, and waaaayyy overpriced dinner. This weekend was markedly different, spent within 5 minutes of home and involving a lot of Pledge and Windex.

We contemplated having a rummage sale next weekend with our neighbors but decided instead to pack all of our stuff with us when we move back to the U.S. and have a rummage sale there. It really is easier moving things thousands of miles away than to think about dealing with the Spanish converging on our house. The last time I sold some stuff I wanted to take my toys and go home, literally.

But what has me posting this weekend is Anja. She is mourning the recent move of her best friend here, the one person that she has spent the most time with; the one who she clicked with from day 1 of them meeting. We have always been so happy to have him over because he and Anja can spend hours playing happily together, and it finally hit her tonight that he’s gone. That’s the hardest part of being a military family, having such short times to forge friendships.

So this post is for Anja and Mason, two fantastic little kids that enjoyed their friendship every day they were together - I’m hoping they get to eat Popsicles together again soon.